Target in Mind
by Damhill
Summary: The Machine couldn't talk to her anymore, it didn't even recognize her anymore. But Root had to do this. Had to face him. She had her gun pointed at his head, ready to pull the trigger, when suddenly a familiar gravelly voice arose from behind her along with a gun pressed to the back of her neck. "Don't."


**A/N: Is everyone as excited as I am after the SDCC POI panel revelations? OMG!**

 **Anyway, I've had this idea in my mind for a long time, and I finally decided to write it down. It's my go on the events after the S04 finale. I hope you enjoy it. If so, don't forget to leave a review. Thank you.**

* * *

Her steps were gritty. Her gaze locked on the target in her mind. The metallic weight of the two guns firmly gripped in each of her hands making her fearless determination even more resolute. The slightly uncomfortable friction in her back due to the two others shoved in the waistband of her black jeans, giving her one more reason to continue on.

If _She_ was still with her, she'd know if those for guns, the little spare ammo and the small grenade she had in her pockets were enough. She'd know how many people were between her and the target. How many more were on their way as she marched closer. She'd know where to shoot, and how to shoot.

But the Machine couldn't talk to her anymore. Not since it didn't even recognize her anymore.

* * *

"Here's everything you asked for, Finch." John said, putting down 100 feet of wire and a black toolbox on the floor of the subway station. Root was behind him with a box full of tech equipment John hadn't even understood the names.

"Everything is ready to go." Root said with a small but hopeful smile, carefully placing the box on top of Harold's desk.

"Let's hope so." Harold said, looking from them back to his computer screen.

It had been four months since Samaritan cornered the Machine and they had to save its core on the small briefcase. Since that day, the little blue led of the briefcase was the only assurance they had that the Machine was still there, still _alive_. Since that day, after luckily escaping from Samaritan's agents, Harold, John and Root had gone completely underground, hiding out at the subway station and only coming out to bring food and supplies. They had also been conjuring a plan to bring the Machine out of the briefcase, collecting what they needed to do so.

And the day to open the box had arrived. Harold and Root had thought of everything, how to decompress it, where to store it, using the electricity of the subway rails to help and Thornhill's storage facilities too.

John extended the wire to where Harold told him to, clipping it on the subway tracks and then watched patiently as the older man and Root did their part. The row of central processing units started rumbling low as Root turned them on.

When they connected the briefcase to the computer, a small window popped up.

 _Do you wish to proceed with decompression?_

 _Admin Authentication Necessary:_

Harold frowned and stared at Root, who had the same unsure expression in her face. They hadn't set any password or protocol for the decompression. The Machine must had set it itself. But how were they supposed to know it?

"Come on Harold, She wouldn't have done this randomly. She chose something she knew you'd know. You know the password." Root said, her hand resting gently on Harold's shoulder.

Harold looked from her to the static screen, then down to the briefcase, as his brain thought of what the password could be.

He glanced up again, and typed 16 digits on the keyboard before pressing _Enter_.

 _Authentication failed._

 _You have TWO more tries._

Root bit down her lip.

"Think, Harold."

Finch adjusted his glasses before hovering his hands over the keyboard, unsure of what to try next. After a few seconds, he finally introduced a different combination of characters and pressed _Enter_ again.

 _Authentication failed._

 _You have ONE more try._

They all remained silent, so silent the sound of their anxious hearts was almost audible.

Suddenly Finch shifted in his chair, startling Root. He got up abruptly and limped to the other end of the desk, where the box Root brought was.

"I need a webcam. The authentication isn't a password. It's literally admin authentication it needs." Finch said as he shuffled and searched the items in the box.

Root stepped closer to help, finding a small USB webcam she had bought and handing it over to Finch.

"How didn't I think it sooner? It was the only way I granted admin access to the Machine, through biometric recognition of its admin's features." He said, as he connected the USB end to the computer and fixed the webcam onto the top of the screen.

The tiny flickering light on the webcam instantly turned green, and as it did, small asterisks started to show on the authentication message.

 _Do you wish to proceed with decompression?_

 _Admin Authentication Necessary:_

 _Authentication complete._

 _Welcome admin._

Root almost jumped and hugged Harold with joy. Harold himself had happiness all over his face.

But they were yet to know what was really left of the Machine. What had remained from that core that fit into the briefcase.

Has they explored and tested the Machine, it started to become obvious.

The Machine didn't recognize John Reese as an asset. Nor Detective Fusco as a secondary asset.

"Who is she?" Harold asked the Machine. Root by his side, staring intently at the webcam.

 _Samantha Groves, 36, born in Bishop, TX, USA._

Harold glanced at Root, a hurt expression on her face.

"What is she to you?" Harold asked the computer. Root swallowed hard.

 _Unable to find any association with Samantha Groves._

Root blinked away the tears in her eyes, a knot forming in her throat.

"You don't know me?" She asked, but nothing was added to what was already on the screen. The Machine wouldn't even answer her.

"Who is your analogue interface?" Finch tried.

 _Function "Analogue Interface" non-existent._

* * *

In order to save itself, the Machine gave up its memory to fit its core code into the RAM in the briefcase. It was like The Machine had been reborn from the ashes, like a baby phoenix, unaware of anything that had happened to it before its rebirth. Like a baby, no memories, only the involuntary but flawless notion of who its parent was.

So Root walked alone. Determined to kill the man responsible for taking everything from her. First Shaw, almost Harold, and now the Machine. Determined to put a break on Samaritan's advances. Now that she was nothing to the Machine, she knew she was interchangeable, she knew she probably wouldn't survive this journey, but it didn't matter. She only needed to give Harold time and opportunity to restore the Machine to its previous greatness. Killing Greer would grant them time. It's not like she was ever not willing to be the martyr in this war. And now, she was more of a suicide bomber than a martyr.

As she entered the building she knew Greer was at, she could almost feel the adrenaline pumping into her veins.

She only took four or five steps inside before Samaritan agents started showing up in every direction.

One, two, three, four. Dead. She was actually expecting more to come before she could reach the staircase. As she climbed up, five more started shooting.

One, two, three… Then a ripping pain in her left thigh as a bullet punched through flesh. She turned around, to where the bullet now lodged in her leg and came from. Four. Looking up, she aimed at the agent on the edge of the stairs. Five. The man fell forward, falling down the stairs, stopping at her feet.

She leaned, unbuckling the guy's belt and then tying it around her wounded thigh, trying to slow the bleeding. Picking up her two guns again, with new magazines, she stepped over the deceased body at her feet and continued her way. At the top of the stairs was a long hallway, at the end of which was a room where Greer was at. But before getting there, Root had to go through some more agents. How many exactly? She didn't have the Machine to tell her, but counting by the number of SUV's parked outside the building, at least nine more. She took shelter behind the wall before turning to the hallway. As soon as she merely peeked, her head barely out of the walls protection, a horizontal rain of bullets started flying by. She jumped back, her wounded and weakened leg almost failing her and making her fall down the stairs too. Without thinking twice Root reached for her pocket, grabbing the small grenade, taking the security pin out with her teeth and throwing the object in the direction of her enemies.

Covering her ears, she waited for the blast, after which she emerged from behind the wall and shot the few agents that were still up and moving through the debris. No kneecaps, only precise headshots.

Eight bodies she had counted.

She limped all the way to the semi-opened door at the end of the hallway, opening it completely to find Greer with his back turned to her. Only one other agent in the room, his gun aimed at her, but his finger steady on the trigger as she held one gun pointed directly at the back of Greer's head and the other pointed at the agent.

"Hello Miss Groves." Greer said, with his heavy British accent as he turned around to face her.

Despite the cold murderous look in her eyes, Root grinned at him. She wasn't going to waste time with conversation. She knew she didn't have it. In a matter of minutes, more SUV's full of Samaritan agents would be pulling over.

"Goodbye Greer." She said, getting her finger ready on the trigger.

"Don't." A gravelly voice said behind her as she felt the cold barrel of a gun being softly pressed against the back of her neck. A voice so utterly and bitterly familiar that Root thought for a moment that she had already been shot dead to be listening to it.

Her heart got stuck in her throat. She didn't move to see who it was. She didn't have to. And even if she did, she was unsure her body had the strength to do so. So her eyes stayed locked on Greer's demoniac gaze, her arms still aiming the guns at her two original targets.

"Shaw?" Root's voice trembled.

"Don't look so surprised, Miss Groves, we had already told you Sameen had been of incredible help before."

They couldn't have turned Shaw. She refused to believe that. Even if it would be the death of her. She knew Shaw. Shaw would never betray them. _Would she?_

Her brain was telling her to shoot Greer, but she was paralysed. Shaw was standing behind her, with a gun pointed at her head. She didn't know what to do or what to think.

"This isn't true, Shaw. Is it?" Root asked, and even though her eyes were still on Greer, the question wasn't meant for him.

"They showed me Samaritan. What it is planning to do to the world." Shaw said.

Root couldn't believe what she was listening to. As the words came out of Shaw's mouth, the taller woman clenched her teeth in anger. _Shaw would never do this. She wouldn't._

"I know you, Shaw. You would never agree with their ideals." Root said, tears starting to form in her eyes as her gaze quavered and the guns in her hands started to feel heavier.

"Yeah. You do know me." Shaw said, and Root could feel her get one step closer. The pressure of the metal against her nape increasing slightly. "That's why I have to get you out of here."

 _What?_

Before Root could even process what Shaw had said, the woman's gun had left her head and had emerged by the side of her face. The loud blast that came from it when Shaw pulled the trigger right next to her face confusing her even more. The bullet casing flying right in front of her nose, falling with a clinging noise on the floor at the same time that Greer's body collapsed in front of her.

"Shoot." Shaw said from right behind her.

And Root immediately looked at the confused agent in the farthest corner of the room. Without giving him more time to act, Root pulled the trigger, shooting him right through the heart.

She was looking back at Greer's lifeless body, still perplexed, when a strong hand grabbed her arm making her turn around.

What she saw then left her even more stunned.

Shaw was right in front of her. After weeks searching and months questioning, the other woman was right there, with her fierce dark brown eyes looking at her.

"Let's get out of here while we still can." Shaw said, pulling her out of the room.

* * *

"I thought you'd be asking me to go back to the subway station with you." Shaw said as she helped Root sit down in a wooden chair of the small apartment they found to hide in. Root let out a groan as stretched her wounded leg.

"Let's just say I left the boys alone for a while. I can't go there right now."

"Why?" Shaw asked.

 _Because I am nothing to the Machine now. I'm worthless._ Root thought to herself, but she wasn't going to tell that to Shaw. She wasn't even sure she should tell Shaw what happened to the Machine. So instead, she just opted not to answer.

When she understood she wouldn't get an answer, Shaw continued.

"Okay. So, you've planned this little suicide mission on your own? They don't know about it?"

Root simply shook her head.

As Shaw moved around the house to get some towels, scissors and a first aid kit, Root simply watched her, wondering about the events that had just happened.

"I don't understand…" She started but Shaw beat her to it.

"The Machine."

"What?" Root asked, unsure.

Shaw returned, kneeling in front of her and untying the belt from Root's still bleeding leg.

"Let's take your pants off." Shaw said blankly.

Forgetting the seriousness of the situation, Root couldn't help but tilt her head to the side and gaze at Shaw with a playful smirk.

Shaw just rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Do you want me to take that bullet out of your leg or not?"

Without losing the grin in her cheeks, Root undid the button and the zipper of her pants, starting to slide them off, hissing and closing her eyes in pain when the waistband reached the wound.

Shaw took Root's shoes off and gently helped her pulling the pants down and off. She then moved closer to assess the wound, her fingers brushing gently around the bloody entrance made by the bullet.

With the help of some tweezers and a bottle of ethylic alcohol she found in the bathroom, Shaw eventually managed to remove the metallic piece from Root's thigh, between grunts and cries from the taller woman, patching her up after.

"What did you mean before, _'The Machine'_?" Root asked, trying to focus on something else but the excruciating pain still coming from her leg.

"I would have never betrayed you guys." Shaw said, shaking her head, her eyes fixed on the bloodied cloth she had wrapped around Root's leg but Root knew she wasn't really paying attention to it now, she was just avoiding looking up at her. "I would've never put you in danger."

Root watched her clench her jaws, angry with herself.

"Yet you did." Root said, not to blame her, but to try to push her into telling her why. "You told them about my implant and how to lure me into their trap…"

Shaw shook her head, her fist now closed tight, her knuckles white.

"Not at first I didn't." Shaw said. She got up and turned her back on Root, starting to walk away.

"Sameen!" Root called, almost begging. Shaw stopped, but remained with her back turned on her.

"What did they do to you?" The question came out softer than Root intended. A part of her wanted to be angry at Shaw, but she couldn't bring herself to it. Although she wanted an explanation, what she wanted more was to know that Shaw was okay, that they hadn't hurt her, yet she knew that was not what had happened.

"What did they do to you?" Root repeated when Shaw didn't answer.

Shaw chuckled lightly, bringing her arms up to the buttons of her black button up shirt. With her back still turned to Root, Shaw undid her shirt and slid it off her shoulders, all the way down to her waist, exposing the skin of her back so that Root could see it.

Scars, cuts, burns and bruises covered every inch of her back, shoulders and forearms, some old, some vividly more recent. Root wasn't expecting that sight, and it only made her regret not having tortured Martine nor Greer before killing them.

She wanted to tell Shaw how sorry she was, but the words couldn't even leave her mouth.

"They thought this would break me." Shaw chuckled again, pulling the shirt up again and buttoning it up.

"I can understand how it would." Root said, sincerely.

Shaw turned around violently, stepping closer to her till their faces were inches away, her hand held right in between, pointing directly at Root.

"I would have let them burn me to death before telling them anything!" She yelled.

"Yet you did." Root stated again, looking her directly in the eye.

"Only because your Machine told me to, Root!"

Root's expression changed from worry to complete surprise. How could the Machine have told her to? Yeah, the Machine had talked to John before, but to Shaw? Why hadn't _She_ told her?

"One day, when I was being held God knows where, a guard came in and I started hearing beeps, faint but I could hear them. At first I thought it was the dehydration causing me to imagine things, but then I listened more carefully and it was a message, for me, in Morse code." Shaw explained, straightening up as she spoke. "It was the Machine instructing me what to do."

"What?" Root asked, still not fully understanding why the Machine decided to contact Shaw.

" _Break. Let them believe you are one of them. Tell them only what you need to make them believe you are one of them."_ Shaw said, quoting what the Machine had told her. "So I did. I told them only enough for them to believe me. I knew that telling them about the subway would put all of you in danger and ruin any chance we ever had. So instead I told them about _you_ and about your cochlear implant and that…" She stopped, looking away for a second.

Root waited for her to continue, in silence.

"… That your feeling for me would be the easiest way to lure you out."

She lifted her head again, meeting Root's glassy eyes.

"I'm sorry."

It was Root's turn to look down, focusing on her own hands resting in her lap.

"I thought that maybe it was part of the Machine's plan, that by doing what _She_ had told me I would somehow be helping all of you. That it would turn into some covert operation." Shaw continued. "But I guess I was wrong. I didn't help at all. I almost got you all killed, The Machine was exterminated and it's mostly my fault. If I hadn't done – "

"She saved you." Root interrupted, still not looking up.

Shaw paused.

"The Machine told you to do all of that to save you. She knew they'd kill you otherwise." Her eyes started to water up. "The Machine saved you."

Root hesitated, afraid of the reaction Shaw would have, but she eventually found herself bringing her hand up to Shaw's face as a stubborn tear escaped her brown eye. Root had spent every day since the stock exchange event blaming the Machine for not telling her if Shaw was alive or dead, if she was okay and how to find her. Yet ultimately, the Machine gave _her_ self away to save Shaw.

To her surprise, Shaw didn't deflect from her touch, remaining still instead, unsure of what to do or what to say.

They stared at each other in silence, Root feeling her heart beat faster at every fraction of it. She made the mistake of slipping her gaze to Shaw's full lips, and when she did Shaw looked away and took Root's hand from her cheek.

"I know I'm not the sanest person on this earth," Root said before giving Shaw a chance to walk away.

"Definitely not." Shaw agreed, remaining where she was, one knee down on the floor, staring at Root again.

"But I almost lost it when we didn't know if you were alive." Root completed. "When the Machine told us to stop looking for you I almost… I - I almost- " She faltered.

"I'm not dead, Root." Shaw said, to calm her down whilst. "I still have a few lives left."

That made Root chuckle as it made her remember the Schrödinger's Cat talk she had with John.

"Yeah, you do." She said with a soft smile.

"Root…" Shaw said after a moment of silence between them. "Seriously, what was your plan today?"

Root knew where she was going with this. After all, Root had walked into a Samaritan guarded building, with no backup – No Harold to give her a tactical advantage, no Reese to give her extra gun power, definitely no Machine to guide her. It looked as plain as it was: a suicide mission.

"I didn't have one." She honestly said.

"I know you're crazy but, why would you do that?!" Shaw spit, a little upset now.

Someone had to. And she didn't matter to this plan anymore. She didn't matter to the Machine anymore, she thought, but she couldn't answer that.

"Someone had to buy the boys time to bring _Her_ back." She said, forcing a smile.

An expression of confusion crossed Shaw's face.

"Wait, what? So the Machine isn't like dead?" Shaw asked.

Root just nodded as she stared back down into her own hands.

"But Greer thinks- Samaritan thinks the Machine is gone. You saved her? How?"

Root sighed and then explained the whole thing shortly to Shaw. And slowly Shaw understood everything, even what had caused Root to rampage.

"You know they won't be able to rebuild it without you, right?" Shaw said. She wasn't sure if it was to cheer Root up but the truth was she actually believed it.

"Yes, they will. Harold built her in the first place -" Root started.

"And look where that took us." Shaw finished, a small smile tilting the corner of her lip up. "C'mon, we can't waste any more time. We need to go back and keep fighting back." Shaw said, getting up and offering her hand to help Root get up from the chair too.

Root stared at Shaw for a second, then at her hand, and then back at her eyes. A sudden hope and strength stroke her, like she hadn't felt since they bottled the Machine up in that briefcase and she stopped listening to _Her_.

But now she had Shaw back, after she thought she had completely lost the other woman. She could still not have the Machine back in her ear, but she felt less empty now, and the edges of the tapestry were visible once again.

They were going to fight back, no matter what at what cost.

* * *

 **A/N: Aaaaand that's a wrap! What did you guys think? This last part was kind of made to end up on the same page that the S05 teaser left us, but with the certainty that Shaw will be there alongside Root once again :3**


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